A configuration item is anything that can be configured and that is absolutely necessary for the success of your project. Information about each ci is recorded in a configuration record within the configuration management system and is maintained throughout. Identification this is the specification of all it components configuration items and their inclusion in a configuration management database cmdb control this is the management of each configuration item, specifying who is authorized to change it. The tailoring of this standard as it applies to this document is. Definition an aggregation of hardware, software, or both, that is designated for configuration management and treated as a single entity in the configuration management process. The configuration management system oversees the life of the cis through a. Scm helps in identifying individual elements and configurations, tracking changes, and version selection, control, and baselining. The configuration management process seeks to identify and track individual configuration items cis, documenting functional capabilities, and interdependencies. It services are typically made up of a bunch of individual components things like servers, software and middleware, and unique configuration information. In software engineering, software configuration management scm or sw cm is the task of tracking and controlling changes in the software, part of the larger crossdisciplinary field of configuration management. What are hardware configuration items and how are they. The purpose of the baseline is to have a static reference point for changes that occur once the baseline is crea. What is configuration management and how does it work.
These items must not be modified without a corresponding entry into the configuration management plan software, etc. Configuration item ci cio wiki it management glossary. In this context, it is very important to remember that all cis are service assets. Administrators, technicians, and software developers can use. Common configuration types include software, hardware, communications, location and documentation. Software configuration management scm process and procedure. Checklist configuration item ci record from the itil process map v2. A software baseline locks in a version, build number, or release number at a particular moment in time. It can have many child cis, such as an operating system, application software, and hardware components. Itil v3 describes configuration item ci as a subset of service asset that has a direct impact on service delivery and needs to be managed in order to deliver an it service in itil, configuration items cis are those service assets which are configurable and can be managed through change management. This chapter is the updated version of the software configuration management scm generally accepted knowledge to be used as a consistent view of this software engineering topic worldwide. A product data management system or engineering document control system is a logical approach to addressing this and other documentation needs. Standard 8282005, standard for software configuration management plans, was used to guide the development of this plan.
Configuration control requires that both proposed and approved engineering changes be tracked and identified to the affected items. Configuration items can overlap and exist at many levels of granularity. Lets start with configuration management, as that has a smaller scope. Workload automation is still used by many organizations to handle eventbased scheduling and resource management across applications, databases, and. Configuration item configuration management systems. Software configuration management scm is a software engineering discipline consisting of standard processes and techniques often used by organizations to manage the changes introduced to its software products. Software engineering system configuration management.
A configuration item, on the other hand, is subject to change control, which is baselinedand thats not true for every asset. List configuration items each item that requires tracking should be identified. What is the meaning of baseline in software configuration. Its predecessor defined only the contents of a software configuration management plan. Software has its own need for configuration management see section 3. Determine when in the acquisition life cycle the government program office will assume initial and full configuration control of its technical baselines. This is often named software configuration management scm.
What configuration management is and where it originated from. Devops code software configuration items best read on. Configuration management cm is a governance and systems engineering process for ensuring consistency among physical and logical assets in an operational environment. Identify the associated artifacts to be contained in the programs technical baselines. Most of the time the eco process is enormously more cumbersome than software development could use and still stay productive. Configuration item management itil documentation agiloft help. To remove a configuration item from the configuration baseline, select a configuration item, and then click remove. The configurationmanagement system oversees the life of the cis through a combination of processes. Itil checklist cms cmdb, enhanced with many additions itil process.
The representations of these entities in the cmdb are configuration items cis. Software configuration management is defined as a process to systematically manage, organize, and control the changes in the documents, codes, and other entities during the software development life cycle. Configuration management represents the one true source of the configuration items. Software configuration management a aa ab ac aaa aab aca acb version 1 version 2 version 3 version 4 figure 2. Simply put, a ci is an instance of an entity that is part of your environment and has configurable attributes specific to that instance. Erp needs a robust capability to track and support engineering changes. In a new incident or problem, cis in which operational status is retired are filtered out from the configuration item list on the form. Jul 01, 2014 software configuration management scm is a software engineering discipline consisting of standard processes and techniques often used by organizations to manage the changes introduced to its software products. All configuration items cis are uniquely identified by ci registration codes and version numbers. If something goes wrong, scm can determine what was changed and who changed it. The item approval, which may be a written quality record or verbal, is a product of quality assurance. After that, this article zooms in on the use of software configuration items sci. However, in the world of software development, a configuration management process is also identified. It has relationships to the request tables, the knowledge management tables and to tables that provide the ci subtypes, catalog items, ci relationships, and so on.
Software configuration management scm a practical guide. This article is about both these processes and the relationship between them. This revision of the standard expands the previous version to explain cm, including identifying and acquiring configuration items, controlling changes, reporting the status of configuration items, as well as software builds and release engineering. Good leaders in the tech space will want to know what it takes to implement it. A configuration item ci is any service component, infrastructure element. The thing we call a configuration item ci and assigning a configuration item identifier cii are part of configuration management identification. Dec 27, 2016 a configuration item, or ci, is anything uniquely identifiable that can be changed independently. Eine cmdb configuration management databasekonfigurationsdatenbank enthalt. Software configuration management scm is a set of processes, policies, and tools that organize the development process.
Specify the important characteristics of each configuration item. Scm practices include revision control and the establishment of baselines. Explaining configuration item ci, cmdb, cms and dml. Identify configuration items to be placed under government program office configuration management cm. A ci is a software model that contains the attributes of the represented entity. It is abbreviated as the scm process in software engineering. Specify when each configuration item is placed under configuration management. Configuration items cis are the focal point of a cmdb. The goal of scm is to improve the speed of and quality by catching errors early and enabling quick fixes when they occur. With the help of processes and tools, configuration management looks after the configuration items, especially with regards to change management, status accounting, identification and any audits.
The steps to performing configuration management are as follows. Product owners, who are responsible for maintaining and controlling the product, and sometimes give approval prior to. Example characteristics of configuration items include author, document or file type, and programming language for software code files. Software configuration management scm is a supportingsoftware life cycle process that benefits project management, development and maintenance activities, quality assurance activities, as well as the customers and users of the end product. Software configuration management is the process of identifying and defining the software configuration items in a system, controlling the release and change of these items throughout the system lifecycle, recording and reporting the status of configuration items and change requests, and verifying the completeness and correctness of. Configuration management is also used in software development and deployment, where it is called software or unified configuration management scm or ucm. The createtask ci action is used as a reference qualifier to the configuration item field of the incidentproblem tables. Cis are the basic units of configuration management. A configuration management system is basically just a set of tools like databases, files, etc. A baseline is a configuration of a hardware, software, or system at a. Software configuration management in software engineering. Itil defines a ci as any component that needs to be managed in order to deliver an it service.
Examples of cis include individual requirements documents, software, models, and plans. The challenge for configuration management solutions is that these software tools need the capability to provide and manage the released revision of the associated documentation at any point in time so the above comparable questions can be answered, and done so by users who may not be cm experts. Configuration management is all about identifying, defining and mapping all your assets and their relationships to one another. Without a clear definition of what qualifies as a ci, you will constantly struggle with deciding whether to put certain kinds of data into the cmdb. Developers and others involved in the project can use scm to keep track of artifacts, including source code, documentation, problems, changes requested, and changes made.
The primary goal is to increase productivity with minimal mistakes. Oct 17, 2019 the design drawings are the configuration item, and its history is tracked because it has implications to potential project scope changes. Csci an aggregation of software that satisfies an end use function and is designated for separate configuration management by the acquirer. Each element in the it environment is an individual entity requiring accurate capture of its attributes. If something goes wrong, scm can determine what was. A configuration item is an entity designated for configuration management, which may consist of multiple related work products that form a baseline.
Use configuration items and configuration management. Ci a component of a system that is treated as a self contained unit for the purposes of identification and change control. A software baseline includes the source code for each software configuration item and a software baseline document that provides a listing of the software and any other pertinent information such as developer, version, or software libraries. Software configuration management patterns alleviates software engineers most common concerns about software configuration managementperceived rigidity and an overemphasis on process. Every configuration item must have a category and possibly subcategories that define what type of item it is. Configuration management and engineering change control. This is related to the older workload automation category of software. A toplevel configuration item is a ci used as the starting point for organizing and promoting a set of related configuration items. Examples of configuration items include software and applications, locations and offices, employees and customers, documentation, hardware and companies, and even your incidents, changes and customers.
Configuration management is focused on managing asset information that can be managed and controlled. In this series of cmsights posts from cmstat on configuration management best practices we will describe what are hardware configuration items ci or hwci and where they are used. Create configuration baselines configuration manager. The following automation is configured for configuration items. Configuration item ci a configuration item is an entity in a configuration management solution such as a cmdb. Software configuration item an overview sciencedirect topics. In itil terminology, configuration items ci are components of an infrastructure that currently is, or soon will be under configuration management. This document provides a practical guide for integrating software configuration management disciplines into the management of software engineering projects. Sep 12, 2019 configuration management is an increasingly important foundation for a successful tech platform.
Configuration items as a configuration management software. Example configuration item hierarchy software configuration management is formally defined in ansiieee std 610. Changes may be required to modify or update any existing solution or to create a new solution for a problem. A toplevel configuration item is a ci used as the starting point for organizing and promoting a set of related configuration items an example of a toplevel ci is a computer system. Software engineering system configuration management whenever a software is build, there is always scope for improvement and those improvements brings changes in picture. Lets look at how configuration items cis are defined by some. The configuration management system oversees the life of the cis through a combination of processes and tools by implementing and enabling the.
System configuration management scm is an arrangement of exercises which controls change by recognizing the items for change, setting up connections between those things, makingcharacterizing instruments for overseeing diverse variants, controlling the changes being executed in the current framework, inspecting and revealingreporting on the. Software configuration item an overview sciencedirect. Checklist configuration item ci record it process wiki. For example, source codes, property files, binaries, servers, and tools can all be configuration items for a software firm. They are used in service management, change management, configuration management, incident management and a variety of other processes related to directing and controlling change. Software configuration items are placed under scm control at different times. Configuration management interacts with quality assurance, as illustrated by the item approval process that accompanies a configuration item from production to storage.
Configuration items vary widely, but include anything related to your account that you want to track. Ein ci kann jede vorstellbare itkomponente sein, beispielsweise software. Indeed, managing configurations is one of the more challenging activities in. This logical grouping provides ease of identification and controlled access. Each configuration item is also linked to a parent catalog item, and it is possible to display all of the other configuration items for that catalog item in the configuration management system cms. Cscis are selected based on tradeoffs among software function, size, host or target computers, developer, support concept, plans for reuse, criticality, interface considerations, need to be separately. What are hardware configuration items and how are they used. Feb 27, 2019 software configuration management involves identifying configuration items for the software project, controlling these configuration items and changes to them, and recording and reporting status. Official definition of csci computer software configuration. Hardware configuration items in asx configuration management. Configuration items itil documentation agiloft help. Well start with configuration management system or cms. The era is a largescale, comprehensive system designed to provide preservation of, and access to, electronic federal. Configuration management database cmdb computer weekly.
Starting in version 1806, select if you want to always apply this baseline for comanaged clients. Through the use of patterns, the authors show that a properly managed workflow can avert delays, morale problems, and cost overruns. Selected items of system hardware or software or combinations of hardware and software, in which the government or acquiring activity has configuration management concern, are designated as configuration items cis. Department of energy quality managers software quality. Simply put, for software development, a baseline is a static i. Configuration management software is designed to automate the deployment of applications in the data center and in the cloud. A ci record within the cmdb contains the following data. For more information about configuration item revisions, see management tasks for configuration data. The cii when combined with the items part number, serial numberlot number, and the commercial and government entity cage code, definitively identifies a companys product from any other. Software configuration management is the process of identifying and defining the software configuration items in a system, controlling the release and change of these items throughout the system lifecycle, recording and reporting the.
1493 269 1114 891 978 506 931 1315 1119 1082 336 214 935 903 491 1005 450 178 857 782 995 1302 140 557 776 900 1460 734 1001 1135